Once upon a lifetime ago a pregnant woman escaped Cuba with her husband by climbing into a boat he had built in secret with nothing but scrap and desperate hope. They left an entire life in the dead of night. They were still too late. The storm was sudden and violent, and the baby could not wait. As he fought a raging sea, she screamed into the angry winds and pulled her wailing daughter from her body.

When Milagro Santos reached the other side, it was only with her newborn daughter.

My mom grew up in a new land and despite warnings, dared to love a boy who loved the sea. But the day before her eighteenth birthday, a spring storm formed out in open waters and shattered another dream. My father’s boat was found but never his body. Mom waited at the dock, her screams etched into the town’s memories as she clutched her middle, me growing inside.

That was the sea for us. And I am the bridge meant to grow big enough to span their tragedies. The lullaby of my life is that to know the sea is to know love, but to love us is to lose everything. We’re cursed, they still whisper, but by an island, the sea, or our own stubborn hearts, I don’t know.

#

“It’s now or never.” Ana-Maria sat on top of my desk as I paced the floor in front of her. She held up her phone and started the timer. I already wanted to quit this entire exercise in favor of verbally throwing up everything I’d been keeping to myself for months.

“So, I think I’ve picked my college—”

Ana was already shaking her head. “Don’t say ‘I think.’ You picked it. Be assertive or she won’t take you seriously.”

I bounced my shoulders in an effort to loosen up. My abuela wasn’t even in the room, but my pulse was already hammering wildly. “Okay. Here it is, Mimi. I picked my college.”

“¡Qué bueno!” Ana trilled in a thick Cuban accent that sounded frighteningly similar to my abuela.

“But it’s out of state.”

Ana let out a wail of despair. She was really getting into her role. “Ay, mi amor, why do you want to leave me?”

I rolled my eyes at her. “It’s only two states away. But I picked it because it has a study-abroad program—”

Ana sat up in a dramatic huff. “¿Cómo? A different country? ¡Eso no es college!”

I pinched the top corners of my blouse and pulled the fabric away from my already sweat-dampened skin. “It is college. They’re actual classes with real credits that count toward my degree. And the program I’ve applied to . . .” I paused and Ana nodded. I squared my shoulders. “The program is in Cuba.”

The College of Charleston accepted my transfer application last week. Right after I got that email I celebrated by silently screaming in my bedroom before applying to their study-abroad program. A whole semester at the University of Havana. I would sit in on lectures taught by Cuban professors. There would be excursions and cultural visits. Old Havana, Viñales, Santiago. My Spanish would get better. I would have my own stories from the island that, for so long, had been an heirloom I couldn’t touch.

Of course the program was expensive, but there wasn’t time to hesitate. I was running against a clock ruled by politicians. I had financial aid, scholarships, and a shoebox of savings from working at the bodega. An education visa was one of the only ways to legally travel there now, and I didn’t have family waiting for me in Cuba, so school was the answer.

At my declaration, Ana gasped and pushed herself off the desk, knocking me aside. She clutched her chest and crashed backward onto the bed, my throw pillows falling over the side. The performance was worthy of a telenovela. I sighed and dropped my hands to my hips. “And I suppose this is where my long-lost sister bursts into the room and tells me she’s stealing my inheritance.”

“Or better yet, your long-lost mother.” It was just a joke, but it hit a nerve like always. If Mom still lived here full-time, maybe I wouldn’t be so freaked out about telling Mimi I wanted to live and learn in the country she’d fled. I’d have a buffer for once, since Mom usually made Mimi mad enough to forget everything else.

Ana stood and grabbed me by the shoulders. Ana-Maria was Afro-Latina, and her parents were also from Cuba. Mrs. Peña left the island as a young child, when family in the States had the money and ability to claim them, but Mr. Peña escaped as a teen. Now they were here, together. My best friend was surrounded by cousins and siblings and didn’t yearn to understand our island like I did. At least not outwardly.

“You’re as ready as your anxiety and many family issues will allow you to be,” Ana offered with a loving squeeze as she pushed me out the door.

“Go get ’em, tiger.”

It was Friday evening at the Santos house, so I knew exactly where my abuela would be: sitting at our tiny laundry room window on the east side of our house, between two lemon trees, where neighbors came in search of answers, guidance, and a little bit of magic. The neighborhood curandera oversaw concerns about struggling gardens, bad dreams, career changes, and terrible luck, and she brewed hope from her window that smelled like herbs and dryer sheets.

I found her there now, corking a bottle. On the other side of the window stood our neighbor Dan carrying a baby in his arms. Dan and his husband, Malcolm—my college advisor and dual enrollment guiding wizard—had recently finalized the adoption of their daughter, Penny. Mimi shook the bottle and studied the liquid against candlelight.

“What’s the matter?” I asked Dan, momentarily distracted by the dark circles beneath his eyes. A paramedic currently on paternity leave, Dan handled his sleepless shifts pretty well, but he looked ready to fall over.

“Penny is teething,” he said around a yawn. “And Malcolm’s still at work, neck deep in appointments and paperwork right now.” Malcolm was the most sought after advisor at Port Coral Community College. He had a calm, thoughtful way about him and looked strikingly like Idris Elba. “But ’tis the season of college app deadlines.”

“Why don’t you just come inside?” I asked. Dan’s family regularly came over for dinner.

“Because Mimi is working, and I won’t make her play favorites like Malcolm does with you. Speaking of, didn’t you—”

“See him earlier today? Why, yes. Yes, I did.” Behind Mimi’s back, I shot Dan a wide-eyed look. I’d met with Malcolm to see if we could find any last-minute scholarships for my study-abroad program. Dan was too tired to catch on immediately. I cocked my head toward Mimi meaningfully until his drowsy gaze was finally replaced by a look of surprise. Everyone was shocked I hadn’t told Mimi yet. But they didn’t understand what it meant to talk to Mimi about Cuba.

“For you,” Mimi said, ignoring us, as she handed Dan a tall, skinny blue bottle. “Drink it with tea one hour before bedtime.”

Mimi grabbed a smaller bottle, its contents a golden-buttery color. She popped the top, and I caught the scent of apple pie. “For Penny and her gums. Pero un momento, I have something else for her, too.” Mimi shuffled past me.

Dan held Penny as they waited on the other side of the window. His eyes fluttered closed. Penny grabbed his cheeks with a happy smack. “I’ll be right back,” I told them and hurried after Mimi.

“Stir the sopa for me,” she called over her shoulder as she moved through the warmly lit kitchen. It was usually only ever the two of us, but the house always made it feel like it was filled with more. More light, more people, more love. I lifted the lid of the pot on the stove and inhaled deeply. The stories about Mimi’s soup ranged from bringing people back from the brink of death to healing broken hearts. The secret was in the caldo, which was carefully nurtured with herbs, vegetables, and bones. I stirred the simmering liquid and took another fortifying breath. “Mimi?”

“Aquí,” she called from farther in the house.

I replaced the lid and went to stand at the threshold of her garden room on the far side of the kitchen. It was a terrible idea to try and talk to her while she was working, but I wanted to get this over with.

“Where are you?”

“Here!” she called again, but I still didn’t see her. The space was technically called a Florida room and was meant for lounging with a cold glass of sweet tea. Mimi turned it into a greenhouse. Breezy and warm even when the windows were closed, it was the beating heart of our home. Lush green plants stretched and swayed in their pots. Well-read books and bottles filled with medicines and potions lined the shelves. There was a wooden-and-steel wind chime that was steady when the day was nice, a little wilder with the rain, and as agitated as a scared kid when bad luck was coming. It was our safe, protected garden that sometimes growled like a tropical jungle. We lived in Port Coral, Florida, but this was Mimi’s island now.

She popped out from between palm fronds, smiling. In her hands she carried a blue blanket that shimmered in the light. I slid my palm across the downy-soft fabric, a feeling of contentment stirring in me. Just like her soups. She headed past me, back to her window. I shook off the sunny feelings and followed.

“Mimi, I picked my college,” I confessed as she handed the baby blanket to Dan. They both looked at me. Dan was grinning.

“Pero you are already in college?”

“Well, yes, but that’s dual enrollment.” I was starting to sweat again. For the past two years I’d bussed my way between high school, community college, and summer classes. It hadn’t been easy, especially not with my part-time job at the bodega, but now I was only weeks away from graduating with a high school diploma and a two-year degree. This fall I was transferring from our local community college to a university to finish my bachelor’s in Latin American Studies.

​ “Ah, sí, I know. Okay, tell me.” She crossed her arms, the jangle of her many bracelets as familiar as a song. It was how I learned to find her when she disappeared among her plants. My mouth opened and my heart knocked against my ribs.

Mimi waited. And I couldn’t do it.

“If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?” I threw the question out with panicked hands. Dan shook his head.

The candles beside Mimi flickered. “Hawaii,” she decided.

“Wait, what?” I hadn’t expected that. “Anywhere in the world, Mimi.”

“I heard you.” She smirked. “I like the Rock. He is very handsome.”

Dan laughed. “Can’t argue with that.”

“But what if you could go to Cuba?”

Her smile disappeared.

Everything I knew about Cuba came from this coastal town, hundreds of miles from the island that was so unknown to me. I met my culture in the food I ate at our table, the songs that played on my abuela’s record player, and the stories that flowed through the bodega and Ana-Maria’s lively home. But I couldn’t find my family in those stories. I couldn’t find me.

“I would not go to Cuba,” Mimi said simply, like it was enough. My abuela was patient and kind, but at the mention of her island, she became shuttered. So many people came to her asking for so much, and she gave them all answers and hope. But never me about this.

“Thank you for this,” Dan said to Mimi. He paid her for the sleepy tea and teething balm. Penny buried her tiny fists into the blanket. He gave me a reassuring smile before heading home.

Mimi began to clean her table. I could smell the soup and hear the hum of music coming from my room.

​ “But things have changed,” I said. Mimi’s face jerked back to me. This was my first time pushing this. My racing heart stubbornly knocked at her closed window. “They’ve been changing for years.”

My freshman year I watched my president step off a plane in Havana. Everyone at the bodega had frozen, watching in disbelief. Even at fourteen, I’d never expected to see the waters between us become crossable again. Soon after that I discovered study-abroad programs in Cuba and threw myself into dual enrollment.

Mimi exhaled sharply. “Ay, things change for you, but never for Cuba’s people.”

The gulf between Cuba and me deepened. “So even if you could go, you’d never return?”

“My spirit will, mi amor.” The regret in her voice haunted me like an old ghost. “They care more about tourists than the Cuban people who still suffer. That is the only thing that never changes.” Mimi snapped her window closed. She stepped up to me and raised a gentle hand to my cheek. “Where is your college, niña? Somewhere fancy?”

And that was that. I’d expected this. There was no reason to be surprised or disappointed. No reason to cry. “Never mind. I’m actually still deciding,” I said, trying to keep my voice neutral.

“Ay, Rosa.” Mimi sighed. “You will make a smart decision soon.”

Soup simmered, wind chimes sang softly, and candles lit the way back to my room. I was home and talking about Cuba had no place here. Mimi was never returning, my mother was always leaving, and I was a flightless bird left at her harbor, searching for answers that were buried at the bottom of a sea I could not know.